Decision Matrix

At the end of the brainstorming and ideation phase, we created around 15 unique ideas. But selecting only one idea out of 15 unique ideas is a tough job, to make this tough job easy Decision Matrix come to aid us.

A decision matrix is a matrix where you write your best ideas in 1^st column and then rank them to few criteria in rows. Criteria are characteristics that you think are important to consider when building the product. We selected 4 ideas out of 15 that are workable and according to user’s need 1. Neck rest should be movable right-left, front-back, top-down,2. Provision to place laptop, 3. chair with Massager, heating pad for pain relief, 4. Adjustable chair height as well as adjustable backrest/ headrest/ armrest heights. To select the best one out of these 4 we selected 6 criteria viz, Usability & Ease of use (4), Durability (3), Novelty (5), MVP (Cost-effective) (2), Safety (5), Comfort(4). Next to each criteria number is mentioned in brackets, those are weights for that respective criteria. Weight help us to rank the criteria i.e 5 weight is most important/ much needed and 1 is least needed.

Now we have 4 ideas and 6 criteria and weight to each criterion. We ranked the idea out of 5 (5 being most likely and 1 being least likely), The rank of the idea is multiplied by a weight of criteria to yield the total points. We ranked the idea collaboratively and the Office chair with Laptop holder got maximum points and it made us select it.

The best:-

1. Decision matrix are unbiased

2. The easiest way to logically find the best idea or product

3. It depends upon the technical and scientific criteria and not some random fancy wants.

4. It helps to decide what we are looking for in the final design.

Could be better:-

1. Sometimes scores get tied, we might need to rework on scores.

2. Fixing criteria for the product is hard and takes time. One needs to understand what we are looking for in a product.